


the games we play

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Bodhi Rook Lives, Bonding, F/M, Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-06 23:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12828606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: They played a game, sometimes, just the two of them. It hurt like hell, but there weren’t many people on base who would find it as amusing as they did.





	the games we play

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misskatieleigh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misskatieleigh/gifts).



Bodhi glanced around the mess hall, each and every table and chair filled with Rebels chattering away at one another, all except for one table and three of the chairs arrayed around it. This was the first time Bodhi found himself outside of the medbay—quiet, comparatively, despite the beeps and the hushed discussions and the gregarious visitors—in weeks and though he wanted to pretend he wasn’t overwhelmed, he was a little bit.

Not least of all because suddenly everyone—or so it seemed—was turning to look at him. As he shuffled his feet and debated the merits of slinking away and the ensuing embarrassment of that versus suffering this scrutiny, he caught a flash of white from the nearly empty table. A flash of white and a blur of dark brown and brown eyes rolling dramatically as the body all of those things belonged to gestured for him.

If Bodhi was relieved, he wasn’t entirely certain of it. His nerves still got the better of him sometimes even though assuaging them was usually as simple as him telling himself _at least you’re not confronting Saw again_ , which did a number on the anxiety, but not so much on the heavy weight of the guilt that still sucked and pulled at him at every opportunity. There wasn’t a lot that could be done about it, he’d concluded about a week back. It was just something he was going to have to live with. And here, now, Princess Leia herself was mouthing for him to _just come over here already_.

Like he was thinking already: he didn’t know whether to be grateful or not.

But one did not deny the princess anything, not unless one was willing to risk an argument.

And though Bodhi was more prepared for those now than he had been before, he didn’t feel like going toe-to-toe with the princess over lunch. Sighing, resigned, he gestured his acknowledgment in return and retrieved a tray of barely identifiable nerf steak and greens before striking out for her table. Meanwhile, he imagined all the ways this could go wrong. The princess was a beautiful, intelligent, compassionate woman—and she was fierce, wielded a mean temper, and pushed every boundary known to the galaxy if it meant doing her duty. That made her, in one word, intimidating.

Plus that whole not being able to stop the Empire from destroying her planet thing. He wasn’t so upset as to believe it had been pointless—in the end, the Death Star had been destroyed—but that certainly put a damper on any conversation they might have had. He knew her home planet was gone. And she knew his own was effectively uninhabitable until who knew when.

“I don’t give a damn about gossip,” she said, straightforward, as soon as he sat, answering a question he hadn’t intended to ask or even bring up. “We’ll always be orphaned by the Death Star if that’s the only thing we allow ourselves to be. We haven’t had a chance to speak much yet, I’m Leia.”

“I know,” Bodhi answered, willing to be a bit challenging in light of her own challenges. “We were introduced, remember?”

“Several times,” she concurred. “But I don’t like to stand on ceremony.” As though to punctuate her point, she held her hand out across the table.

He didn’t know when he shook it in turn that this would be the start of something.

He didn’t, but given the glint of interest in her eyes, he should have.

*

They played a game, sometimes, just the two of them. It hurt like hell, but there weren’t many people on base who would find it as amusing as they did.

“What do you miss?”

“There’s this tea,” Bodhi said. “Tasted like shit honestly, but just about everybody in the Holy City drank it. I sometimes think the locals used it as a rite of passage. You weren’t a true Jedhan until you could sip it with a straight face. And I mean, _sip_ it. You had to take your time. You couldn’t just down it and get it over with, no. You could be sitting across from some old woman for hours drinking this stuff if you weren’t careful.” He laughed a little, remembering the few times he’d been caught up in a stare-down in a café.

“I miss good liquor.” Leia nodded, grim. “Toniray.”

Bodhi raised his glass of subpar moonshine that had been distilled somewhere in the bowels of the Massassi Temple. Now they were on Hoth, the location still too knew to have a dedicated still. Made it the perfect thing to drink for a game like this. “To Toniray.”

Leia drank deeply and only then lifted her glass. “To shit we love anyway.”

“To that.”

“To better games than this,” Leia finished with a laugh.

*

They didn’t kiss until Hoth base was lost, overrun by Imperials, and they were safely trapped aboard the _Millennium Falcon_ , Han huffing about this, that, and the other problem they had no way of solving. _Where’s Luke, how did the Imperials find us, are you gonna help or am I just supposed to float us to the rendezvous point?_ He’d gone on and on and by the time Bodhi was ready to throw a punch or two—not his first instinct, but with Han grating on his every nerve, it was moving up the list—Leia was tugging him away from the cockpit and Han’s colorful commentary.

“Let’s leave it to him and Chewie,” she suggested. “They work better when it’s just them anyway.”

“Because they’re the only ones who know what they’ve done to the ship. I can’t figure out what they’ve done to half the systems.” He wasn’t sure where she was guiding him, but he went willingly enough, learning the layout of the ship as they went. This was his first trip on this particular bucket of rust and he still didn’t trust it. But he’d follow her anywhere; he trusted her not to lead him astray.

They found their way to a lounge, tacky and filled with overstock from past jobs or—something. There was a Dejarik table in the corner, the paint of the board flaking, the holoprojector occasionally releasing a ghostly flicker. The thing obviously needed to be recalibrated. Someone should do something about that. Bodhi could—

Bodhi couldn’t do anything, because suddenly Leia was reaching for him and saying, “I hope I haven’t got the wrong idea here.”

Before he could ask, she pressed her cool, soft, fantastic lips against his, grabbed hold of his flight suit and clung for dear life to it. Bodhi felt like she intended to climb inside of him, which would have been terrifying if he didn’t find the idea of being as close to her as possible the best idea any of them could ever have. He wanted to live in this moment forever. He couldn’t say losing both of their planets would have been worth it just for this, but it certainly made up for enough of the pain to make it bearable.

“Leia,” he said, awed, once she pulled back, his world shifting on its axis. She tried to brush her hair out of her face, but the strands fell back into place, as adamant about their right to remain there as Leia was determined to see them moved. Bodhi tried his hand, tucking them into the braid that crowned her head. He didn’t know how long it would last or whether they would stay at all, but he liked the pink that tinged her cheeks and how she wouldn’t quite meet his eyes. She looked as annoyed as she ever did.

He wouldn’t have had it any other way. Leia was ever Leia and that was all Bodhi had ever wanted.

“I like you,” she said, quick and clipped. “I have for a long time now.”

Bodhi smiled and brushed her hand across Leia’s cheek again. “I like you, too,” he said, and the admission was the easiest one he could possibly have made. For a man like Bodhi, who kept quiet and who kept to himself, that was incredible. “I have for a long time now.”

“It’s not the most convenient timing, I know,” she said.

“Is it ever?”

“No, I guess not.” She smiled now at him, too, and for a time, everything was all right with the galaxy.

He couldn’t have asked for more from the galaxy they lived in.

He couldn’t have asked for more ever.


End file.
